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Definition of the User Interface The user interface is a component of a computer or its software which can be visualized, heard, touched, interacted with, run and understood by the common people or users of the computer. The two main elements of the user interface are, (i) Input In an interaction with a computer the user provides information to it. The data is received by the computer through input devices like keyboard, mouse, trackball, a person's finger in case of touch-screens and person's voice in case of oral commands. The information is all about what the user wants from the computer. (ii) Output This deals with the processed information sent to the users as a result of their input. The output is displayed in such a way that the users can view it with their eyes on the display screen (monitor), they can hear from speakers through voice and sound. They can even make a copy of the information provided to them with the help of printers. Thus output shows how the computer responds to the users request with the help of its output devices. Hence, the user's output becomes the computer's input and user's input becomes computer output. The Importance of the User Interfaces The user interface design belongs to a field called human computer interaction. Human computer interaction is a technique that deals with learning, thinking and designing as to how users and computer communicates with each other. It gives an idea about how a person's requirements are fulfilled by the computer system in an efficient manner. Therefore the user interface makes the interaction between the people and the system, easy. The development of many new communication and display techniques leads to a package known as Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI has many features which are useful to the people. (i) They help in product design through style guides. (ii) They give instructions on how to update the design software on time. The WORLD WIDE WEB (www) is an important recent development in interactive computing. The web is built on the top of an internet and provides a simple way to access the information through graphical interfaces. Hence the user Interfaces simplicity and easy access by people has increased its importance and made it very useful. It takes into account what people desire and expect, what physical restrictions and abilities people have and what people find enjoyable and attractive.
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A good design leads to great user satisfaction as stress, frustration and anger are reduced. The rate of customers increases due to the satisfactory service provided to them by a good design interface. The economical advantage of good design is that it saves a great amount of money by fixing the errors during the design process itself rather than fixing them after the product's release.
Therefore the screen of the 1970s needed huge amount of toleration and exercise by the users in order to extract the best from the screen. The screen of 1970s is shown in figure (a).
In the 1980s a wide variety of design guidelines were launched in the market for designing screens. The appearances of screens were made very clear by arranging and ordering the elements. An assistance to the user was provided by giving clear and useful headings for the areas on the screen. Also the commands were listed nicely and were applied by function keys. Messages could be easily interpreted but the screen elements were not completely ordered. The screens contained instructions and reminders as prompts for the users. Certain codes like NN, CC, OOSD were presented on the screen to help the users in selection.
In the 1990s the introduction of graphics contributed a lot in screen designing. A long with arranging and ordering the elements, borders were also included to usually enhance groupings. The commands were now handled by buttons and menus rather than function keys. Elements had numerous features such as a variety of font sizes, styles, line thickness and colors. List-boxes, drop-down combination boxes, spin-boxes were used for making entries. The users did not need to memorize anything as everything was listed in the controls provided on the screen. The codes were removed from the screen and new listing control was inscribed.